A Scornful Glance
by Halatheal
Summary: Thalia is being punished by her father because she disobeyed her father and king. She will try to escape. Will she make it? Please Read and Review
1. Chapter 1

"Thalia, you know the rules. You chose to disobey them." My father looked down at me. I know I disobeyed the rules. But I had a perfectly good reason to. The only reason why I had stolen the Book Cratsio was to learn more about how out kingdom was made. But since I was a princess, I had to wait until I was 16. I was 14 and eager. I didn't want to wait.

There were stories in there that told of my grandfather who had destroyed many forests just to find a Dragon Orb. There were more paragraphs stating that our family was a tyrant over the kingdom. Normally my father could careless if I read about this. Except if it was our family who did the bad deed. It was our family who committed the bloodshed. It was out family who committed long hours to a killing spree. The gods and goddesses created this race of elves as an experiment to see what would happen. It turned out to be an experiment gone wrong. They had taken a single elf and a single drop of blood and came up with us. A terrible race of elves that could careless who died.

My father looked down at me. With black horrible eyes. They showed no pity. My mother and father never showed me pity when I did something wrong. My mother and father called me the "Unwanted Child" the asked me why I wasn't like my brother who as perfect as the came. He could kill without tears, he was the perfect swordsman. All I could do was shoot a bow and hope for the best. I shot around the center of my target, very rarely did it ever miss. But my parents still shunned me. As the princess of Cratsio my parents expected me to commit a killing without tears. I was still to full fill the quest. I. I the imperfect child. The only child my parents felt the need to punish with whips and unkind words. Oh they had done other things to me worse but that is not needed to be said or thought.

Needless to say, I would rather die that kill someone. "Father, I know the rules and I disobeyed. Do your worst. For I would rather die than be princess of such a horrid place." That did it. My father looked at me with such hatred you would have thought I was a thief or a kender.

"That does it! I have a punishment so deep and dark that you would rather stay here then die." He looked over at my mother. Then at my brother who sat it in the corner smirking. "Lanerd, you know what punishment I am talking about don't you?"

"Yes father, the volcano skin burn, right?" The what? I had never heard of this punishment before. I have studied the kingdoms punishments in depth to prepare myself, but this. This was by far the worst.

"Yes Lanerd." He turned back to me. "Thalia, you will be going to the Volcano Spoids, you will be stripped bare of the back and will be lowered into a volcano. They will not drop you they will just let you get the worst burn you have ever known. When you have decided you have learned a much needed lesson just yell at Lanerd and he will make sure you are pulled back up. He will not dress you wounds for this part of the punishment. He will dress you wounds with scratchy cloth that has salt rubbed into it." He then motioned for gaurds to take me away.

This was by far, the worst punishment and day that has ever happened in my whole life.


	2. Chapter 2

Lanerd and I walked further and further into the forest, it was almost time. He would soon strip my back and lower me on a pole into the volcano until I was practically baking in it. I wouldn't doubt it if I melted. Lanerd of course could care less If I died. He probably could care less if I was in trouble. He just wanted to get back to his sword fights. I could see the smoke rising up as we soon arrived at the base of the volcano.

"Here we are dear sister, it is time for you to be punished." He said it a bittersweet tone (he knew I hated.) He always bugged me. I sighed as he pushed me along. I guess now was the time to just accept that I was going to practically die in a tragic volcano "Accident". Yep, that's the word my father would use. "Accident" he would think he was so clever. The people would believe him. They were stupid enough to go on his raids and murder sprees. Why wouldn't they believe that I died trying to go volcano swimming?

"Must you use that voice as I'm about to go volcano swimming, brother?" I used a to sweet voice that I overplayed to annoy him. We were good at that. Annoting each other. This was probably the closest I could get to being the Solinast elf. Annoying.

"Why yes my dear sister. It is tradition to annoy a person whos about to go volcano swimming." Great, a new tradition. And may I say, our people had many traditions. The roasting of a live kender before a great holiday, or the tradition where we all put or hand in the fire to cleanse ourselves of not committing a murderous deed that month. Lovely. I know.

"Well... Lets get this over with." There were guards posted everywhere to make sure I didn't escape. Lanerd quickely cut the back of my shirt out. He was going to make sure this would be painful and that I would hate him for the rest of my life (maybe my young life if this turns out bad.) He then tied a thick pole to my back. I then realized how this punishment would work out. He would tie two poles to me there for suspending me over the volcano (Its a very small volcano) and then lowering me into it. If I were the one watching rather then being punished I would be amused on how crudely this punishment was constructed, all in all I would probably fall in the volcano rather than just feel its rath.

Lanerd then tied another pole up to my my knees. Then wrapping a thick rope around the meeting area of the two poles. A guard then came up to help lanerd carry me to the volcano. I prayed to the dear god Mishakal. (Thats another thing, I worshiped a different god from my people. I have been keeping it from my parents all these years. They would kill me if they found out.)

We were now slowly climbing up the volcano. Lanerd still smirking (of course) could't be happier to see me down there (if I haven't gotten my point across already.) We are about half way up and I'm already starting to sweat just from nerves. I imagine what it will be like inside the volcano. I knew it would be worse, but how much worse? Would me skin litterally melt off my bones? Or would my skin just be majorly peeling off to where you could see the bone? Neither would be a pretty sight. Luckily I can't see my back, so I can't see the damage it will do.

We are now finally about to reach the edge of the boiling rock, just as they set the poles down on each edge. Thats when they actually look in volcano. The lava is about a hundred yards down. The poles will never reach.

"What do we do now Sir Lanerd?" The guard asked looking down at me in. Eyes filled with hatred. Yep, nobody liked me.

"I guess we should return to father and tell him that we should wait until the lava is higher." The volcano had erupted a few months ago, causing us to evacuate. No one had ever checked to see where the lava was. Well I guess everything turned out okay. For now...


	3. Chapter 3

"What?!? The lava is down?" My father was in a frenzy. He must really be desperate to punish me. Or kill me. I guess either way was punishment to him. Burn me, punishment. Melt me, punishment. Death, punishment. I have never heard of my family actually killing the children. My father is actually going to break a record if he does end up killing me.

"I'm sorry father, but yes they are. I'm afraid it is to far down to reach, or even get close enough."

"Can't we just throw in?" My little sister suggested. My little sister was the most evil little thing on earth. She could careless if Lanerd and I both were killed. Her name Kalio, in my words... It meant evil. And when it came to Kalio, Lanerd agreed with me about her being evil. She was more evil than my family put together. The only reason why I don't talk about her much is because surely it would bring me bad luck to talk about something so evil.

"No Kalio." My mother hushed her with her rare pleasant voice. My mother was never close to kind with me. Nor my father.

"The lava would reach her better than just sticking her in there with a pole." Gosh was she annoying.

My father sighed. "I guess we will have to wait.... Or...." or what?!?!?

"Or we could do the traditional punishment." Okay, the traditional punishment was actually like burning your hand compared to the volcano skin burn. The traditional punishment is where you go on a quest to go find some ancient object or something like that. Most people don't make it back but still. Its better than the volcano.

Kalio started fidgeting with irritation. She wanted me dead. And she knew I knew that. She wanted Lanerd dead. She wanted all of our family dead if possible. The only exception was mother. She was kind only to Kalio. Kalio was like a doll. A precious doll compared to the rest of the rags.

"Thalia, you must find the... Staff of Majere."


End file.
